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Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Prize Laureate, mother of two, and devout Buddhist, is one of the most inspiring examples of spiritually infused politics and fearless leadership that the world has ever seen. Daughter of the martyred Burmese national hero who negotiated Burma's independence from Britain in the 1940s, Aung San Suu Kyi led the pro-democracy movement in Burma in 1988. The movement was quickly and brutally crushed by the military junta, and Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest.The Voice of Hope is a rare and intimate journey to the heart of her struggle. Over a period of nine months, Alan Clements, the first American ordained as a Buddhist monk in Burma, met with Aung San Suu Kyi shortly after her release from her first house arrest in July 1995. With her trademark ability to speak directly and compellingly, she presents here her vision of engaged compassion and describes how she has managed to sustain her hope and optimism.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, or the Dalai Lama, Aung San Suu Kyi has become an international symbol of struggle against repression and brutality. In The Voice of Hope, she emerges as a human being--a mother of two sons as well as an inspirational human rights advocate and all-around moral compass. Once a soft-spoken scholar living in England, this daughter of a Burmese military hero catapulted to prominence as the spokesperson for her country's beleaguered democracy movement. Even when imprisoned by Burma's ruling junta, she continued to work for freedom and human rights, eventually winning the Nobel Peace Prize and attracting the world's attention to the plight of Burmese dissidents. The Voice of Hope chronicles nine months' worth of her conversations with British-born Alan Clements, a Burma expert and former Buddhist monk. The two discuss love, truth, power, compassion, and freedom from fear as well as Aung San Suu Kyi's own brand of activist Buddhism. In the process, a portrait emerges of a profoundly religious as well as political leader, a woman who used years of house arrest to develop her meditative practice, mindfulness, and spiritual strength.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"[Shows] Aung San Suu Kyi's humour, erudition, wisdom and accessibility, and demonstrate[s] why she has become a world spiritual leader" New York Times "I am delighted that The Voice of Hope is being republished. This is a message that the world should hear" President Jimmy Carter "This is a remarkable book, as inspired as it is wise. Read it and learn from Aung San Suu Kyi's amazing life" Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart "Suu Kyi is one of the most remarkable and brave women of our time. Her dying husband Michael was refused permission to go to visit her. Even the phone calls I used to have with her have been stopped for some years. The regime in Burma is an outrage, and it is a blot on the international community that we have done so little about it. This book is testimony to the staunch commitment and sacrifice of an astonishingly courageous and visionary person" The Rt Hon the Lord David Steel of Aikwood KT "Aung San Suu Kyi's struggle for freedom is Burma's struggle for freedom. If you read this important book you'll understand why" Maureen Lipman
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

I have been intrigued with the situation in Burma since watching the movie Beyond Rangoon some time ago. It was therefore with great interest that I ordered this book as soon as it was available. In "The Voice of Hope" Alan Clements brings us into the present with this tragic situation through the person of Aung San Suu Kyi and her incredible life. But what sets this work apart from histories, biographies, and oddly enough even self-help material - is the powerful integration of beliefs and action found in Aung San Suu Kyi's life and philosophy. In reading chapter seven alone, ("Saints are Sinners who go on trying") I was personally and deeply moved by the clear connectedness described between her experience with a repressive government and the need for thinking people everywhere to courageously fulfil our potential as thinking, "questing" individuals. The repressive government in Burma is shown to be an extreme and yet still relevant metaphor for intellectual repression in all its forms. And Aung San Suu Kyi's message offers specific insight together with believable emotional support for those who struggle to reconcile what we discover and know through our own searching with what we are expected to believe by others. If it helps anyone who is deciding whether this book is worth the money - I can only say that as one who buys and reads more than 100 books a year - this book has earned a unique place in my library and in my heart. I would trade every other book I have read this year for Alan Clements' latest contribution. Thank you.

This book shocked me awake to the realities of countries where freedom is not enjoyed as in the United Sates. The government's repression and horrific inhumantiy are just unbelievable. But, more amazing is the dedication to nonviolence which Aung San Suu Kyi and her party follow in their democracy movement. Her manner in speaking of Burma's serious situation is so calm, hopeful, and loving that it makes one reinterpret and recast their interactions with their own worlds. One may also reflect on one's place in humanity and see that Burma's tragedy, Burma's fate, is our own and we must act now. Aung San's hope and strength are qualities we would do well to adopt as our own. I do not think it is possible for one to read this book and NOT feel urged to take some form of real action (via letter writing, publicizing the issue, etc).

In this book, as in "Freedom from Fear" and "Letters from Burma", Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi exposes to the world the grim realities of her land and her people, seen through her very eyes. As always, she is able to jump with great ability from more personal and sentimental accounts of the situation, to hard data, from recollections of her childhood, to perspectives on Burma's future. Always filled with thrill and dense with emotions, her writings are for the expert and the ignorant alike, easy to understand, yet of high value historically and academically. For anyone wishing to know more about Burma and the struggle of her people for human rights, this is must reading.

Now in an expanded second edition including an interview with U Gambira (a leader of the All-Burma Monks Alliance that organized the protests of September and October 2007), The Voice of Hope: Aung San Suu Kyi Conversations with Alan Clements is an extensive interview with Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Laureate, mother of two, and practicing Buddhist who led the pro-democracy movement in Burma in 1988. The movement was harshly crushed by the military junta that renamed Burma as Myanmar. Alan Clements, the first American ordained as a Buddhist monk in Burma, met with Aung San Suu Kyi after her release from her first house arrest in July 1995. She delivered her perception of engaged compassion and spoke of how she maintained her hope and optimism despite continued governmental oppression. "You must not forget that the people of Burma want democracy. Whatever the authorities may say, it is a fact that the people want democracy and they do not want an authoritarian regime that deprives them of their basic human rights. The world should do everything possible to bring about the kind of political system that the majority of the people of Burma want and for which so many people have sacrificed themselves." A singularly powerful and also deeply spiritual testimonial on behalf of a troubled nation.